


Hungry Like The

by Sorrel



Category: Kelley Armstrong- Darkest Powers
Genre: Cute, F/M, Friendship, Short Story, Teenagers, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-27
Updated: 2009-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-03 21:16:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorrel/pseuds/Sorrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Necromancer Chloe Saunder's life has fallen into a pattern: ghosts, zombies, and living with her dad and counting down the days till college, while she escapes to Stonehaven to stay with the werewolf Pack every chance she gets. Her mentor lives there part of the year, but Jaime Vegas isn't the main reason that she's always drawn back. If Derek can't leave Stonehaven to come see her, well, she's always going to find the time to go to him. And one of these days, he's going to figure out why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hungry Like The

I was reading Simon's email when Derek came into the room, filling up the space with his sheer presence, like always. He curled up on the couch with his bio textbook, and I glanced over at him, wondering if he wanted my attention- but no, he was already absorbed in his book. Typical Derek, not even a hello.

I turned my attention back to my email, where Simon was cheerfully detailing Mr. Winterbourne's legal case and the latest flare-ups in Tori and Savannah's Cold War. Savannah still had the advantage, I was pleased to hear, though I felt a bit of a disloyal flare to think it. Tori was one of Us; we'd gone on the run with her and fought evil corporations with her and I should be rooting for her. But she was a _bitch,_ and at least Savannah was nice to me whenever she came out to Stonehaven to visit.

I skimmed past descriptions of the new spells he was learning, much like I was sure he skimmed past my descriptions of ghost encounters, because sometimes it was more important to be able to babble about new things than it was to actually have someone _listen._ And God knew I'd never get Derek to sit still long enough. Simon was the brother with social skills.

Finally I got to the end of the email, the best part, the part I'd been waiting for: the last few pages of Darkest Powers, completed and colored and so _perfect._ I must have made some muffled _eep_ noise of sheer joy, because I heard Derek uncoil himself and come to stand behind me. "That from Simon?"

I nodded, grinning wide enough to hurt my cheeks, and pointed on the screen. "Look at that! He finished bit about the invasion at Andrew's place. Isn't that fantastic?"

Derek planted one big hand on the desk on either side of me and leaned in to see the screen better, completely boxing me in and giving me a whiff of the pine-needle-and-sunshine scent that was clinging to his t-shirt. He must have just come in from his walk in the woods. I had to fight not to lean back against him. I'd left Tom less than twenty-four hours ago, and my reflexes still told me to touch.

Derek made a displeased noise. "Got the house wrong."

I twisted around to scowl at him. "It's called artistic license, smartass. Is that all you've got to say?"

"Hmm." Derek made a show of considering it, but I could tell from the way his smile was tugging at the corners of his mouth that he was just messing with me. "Yeah, that's pretty much it."

"See if I ask your opinion again," I said tartly, and he gave that statement all that consideration it deserved with a quick snort before he headed back for the couch. Yeah, like I was capable of holding to that for more than _five minutes._ I was too used to getting his input on every damn thing I did when I was near him, and since he was finally learning to_ ask_ before he gave it, well, it felt weird to sulk him out.

A few minutes later I heard the front door slam and the excited babble of little kid voices. Elena must have gotten back from Kate and Logan's art class. Jeremy could teach them, of course, but the point wasn't in the quality of their finger-painting, the point was the social experience. Nobody wanted the twins to turn out like Clay- not even Clay himself.

"Chloe, Chloe!" Logan said, running straight into the room and making a flying leap for my chair. I caught him with difficulty- man, he was getting heavy- and laughed as he promptly burrowed in for a hug. "You'll never guess what I drew in class today!"

"Logan Danvers!" Elena yelled in exasperation, her footsteps hurrying down the hall in his wake. "What did I tell you about assaulting our guests!"

I smiled at her as she came into the room, still clutching a pile of paintings in one hand and Kate's backpack in the other. "It's fine, Ms. M-" Elena gave me a warning look. "-Elena," I corrected hastily. "I don't mind."

"That's not the point," Elena huffed. "The point is that I'm trying to train them to have _some_ manners, and _yet_-"

"Chloe's not a guest, Mom," Logan said, with his usual childish practicality. "So it's not against the rules."

Elena put one hand to her forehead and laughed, a little helplessly. "All right, you little monster. But I'm not going to be held responsible when you get too big for jumping and Chloe gets mad."

Logan tilted his head back and gave me huge, liquid blue eyes, wide with innocence. "Are you going to get mad?"

I couldn't help it. I hugged him. "Not a chance."

Elena rolled her eyes. "You're going to regret that one." She dropped the paintings onto the desk next to me. "I heard from Jaime, by the way. She's taking the next flight, and I think she's getting in late tomorrow night."

I smiled, with real pleasure. I loved Jaime. She wasn't like Mom or Aunt Lauren or… well, any grown-up woman I'd ever known, really. She was so _cool,_ with her stage shows and being a medium and everything, and she always taught me tricks like how to dress (even though we looked completely different) and how to tell when someone was lying. She didn't try to be my mom, but she was the best teacher I could have had, and sometimes, way in the back of my head, I kind of thought of her as my _real _aunt. Just a little.

"So this will be a proper educational summer break for you, after all," Elena finished, and winked. "Can't have your dad letting you go off for two whole months with nothing to show for it."

I snorted. "Oh yeah, he's heartbroken." I loved my dad, really I did, and for the most part we got along fine… But he still twitched whenever I started talking to what seemed like nothing but thin air to him, and no matter how much he believed me about being a necromancer and not crazy, sometimes I thought he still wanted to send me away to some place for a little rehabilitation. Two whole months where I wasn't around to freak him out had sounded like heaven for the both of us.

"Well, I'll feel responsible, anyway." She sighed and hitched Kate's tiny blue backpack (no pink for Miss Kate, no sirree) absentmindedly over her shoulder. "Well, I know we're probably all hungry, so I'm going to bring the groceries in from the car and get dinner started. Anybody know where Clay and Jeremy are?"

I shrugged helplessly- I thought I'd heard them doing something in the garden when I got up a couple hours ago (my plane got in late, okay?) but I had no idea where they'd actually gone. They weren't in the house- I'd checked, when I'd gone into the kitchen for a sandwich break a while ago.

"In the woods," Derek grunted, not bothering to look up from his book. I think both Elena and I looked at him with identical surprised expressions. Werewolves had practically bionic hearing, but Derek was worse than Clay when it came to actually paying attention to people.

"They Changed already?" Elena said, with a sort of strangled scream in her throat. "_Without_ me?"

Derek looked up and blinked. "They just went running," he said, and when Elena's expression didn't lighten up, clarified, "In human form."

"Oh." Elena sighed. "All right then. I'll just… go get dinner started, shall I? Before I make more of an idiot of myself."

She didn't sound like an idiot. She just sounded stressed, which was pretty reasonable considering everything that was on her plate. I wouldn't want to have to deal with Kate and Logan twenty-four/seven, either. "Anything I can do to help?"

She let out a long, slow breath and then smiled at me. "No, but thanks for offering. Just look after the monster here until I get things ready and I will be in your debt forever."

Logan, in my lap, bounced with excitement. "I think I can handle that." Then I thought of something. "Uh, Simon sent in the last few pages, do you mind if I print off-"

"Of course," she cut me off. "And next time, _don't ask._ Really, some of the articles I collect take up more ink than you possibly could even if you printed out the entire comic."

I glanced down at the keyboard, a little embarrassed at the way I couldn't help but put on my company manners, sometimes, even now. I knew it drove the Danvers clan crazy because they didn't see me as a guest, but… This wasn't really my home, and I knew it even if they didn't. "No problem."

Elena scrubbed one affectionate hand over the top of Logan's head and then clomped down the hallway to the kitchen, kicking off her shoes as she went. I looked over at Derek. "You want to join in the fun?"

He lowered his book just enough to give me a disbelieving look, and I sighed and scooched Logan a little higher on my lap. "Looks like it's just you and me, kiddo."

**~*~**

It was after midnight when I woke up. The first thing I did was a quick internal check to make sure that my powers weren't going wandering in my sleep, but that dark cold place inside of me was lying quiet. I'd been pulled from my dreams by something a little more mundane than the walking dead. There was a familiar shadow lurking in the wider darkness of my open door, and his presence had woken me up. I'd gotten especially turned to my surroundings when I first started raising _zombies_ in my sleep.

"Derek? What's going on?"

He gave off a little rumbling growl, and I pulled myself up to a sitting position, concerned now. "Remember how we had that little talk about using your words?"

He came into the room a little, until the very faint light from my window reflected across his face. Jeremy must have left the porch light on. "I think it's tonight."

I almost fell off the bed, I scrambled out of it so fast. "Tonight? But you were thinking it was a couple days from now."

He shifted restlessly, and even from halfway across the room I could sense the wild longing coming off of him in waves. "Guess it came early. Listen, I didn't mean to wake you."

"So you were just going to stand in my door like a stalker?"

He ran one hand distractedly through his hair, and I knew he wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders right now. Part of him- a big part- was already outside and running loose. "Uh, no, I guess not. I was just-"

"Being stupid?" I supplied, when he faltered. To my surprise, he laughed.

"Yeah, probably."

"I'm not missing it for the world," I informed him, and headed for my closet. "Just let me get dressed and grab my notebook and I'll be ready to go." I'd learned the hard way to dress warmly and bring along something to entertain me. Unlike Derek, I wasn't going to be chasing rabbits.

I grabbed jeans and a thick sweater and then glanced over my shoulder to see Derek still staring vacantly at me. Well, not _at me,_ at me, but over my shoulder, toward the open window. Either way, definitely not the direction I wanted his gaze.

"Uh, Derek? Think you could maybe turn around?"

"Huh? Oh!" He obeyed with alacrity, and it was hard to tell in the low lighting, but I thought he might be blushing.

I yanked off my pj's and shimmied into my change of clothes quickly, tucked my pendant under my shirt, and shoved my feet into boots. A quick glanced around the room located my DP notebook on top of my dresser, and I grabbed it with one hand and a couple pens with the other. "Okay, ready to go."

Derek turned around and, for no reason I could figure, smiled at me. "Good."

**~*~**

The first few times Derek had tried Change, he'd spend hours on the ground, convulsing and heaving his guts out, only to shift uncomfortably into a variety of painful half-forms. It wasn't like that now, actually it went a whole lot more smoothly than years of horror-movie marathons had led me to expect, but I still couldn't shed the worry that maybe _this_ time would be the time it went wrong. I couldn't even blame it on watching, either. I worried just as much- maybe more- when I was back in Buffalo with dad.

(The first time he'd Changed, it had been to kill the man who murdered his father. The second time we were all here at Stonehaven, before Tori and Simon went to live with Ms. Winterbourne and Mr. Cortez, before Jaime and Jeremy talked me into calling my dad. I'd been asleep and I'd had one of my necro nightmares and gone looking for Derek because at that point I couldn't imagine wanting anyone else after those dreams, and I'd found him outside with Jeremy and Clay and Elena, partway through his Change. Jeremy and Elena had tried to talk me into going back inside as if I hadn't already seen it and worse besides, but then Derek had gritted out "She can stay" through jaws gone half-lupine, and Clay had been the one to override the others and let me go to Derek's side.)

I averted my gaze when he stripped down until he was curled up on the forest floor, then placed one hand, palm-open, on his back between his shoulder blades. Already the muscles were beginning to ripple and strain in the way no human's could possibly do, which helped take my mind off the fact that his back was broad and hot to the touch and slick with sweat. Once upon a time this had been terrifying, not alluring, I was almost sure of it.

The Change didn't take so long, now. Actually he was one of the fastest of all the wolves, though he paid for the skill with more frequent and erratic Changes. He hadn't even bothered to consider going away to college, just took day classes in Syracuse and augmented his knowledge with the vast library at Stonehaven and home lessons from one of the foremost anthropology professors in the US. He hadn't really left Stonehaven since Clay and Elena had hauled the four of us here, even after the rest of us slowly trickled away. We came back to him, though. Simon was in all the time with either Ms. Winterbourne or Mr. Cortez, and Tori… yelled at him on the phone a lot, and I was here every chance I could get. I would anyway, 'cause Jaime lived here half the year, but Derek was here. Of course I came back.

After a minute or so, there was a wolf standing on the forest floor in front of me. He had thick, dark fur and dark eyes, like Jeremy's wolf form, but he wasn't anywhere near as big as Jeremy was when he was Changed. It was funny; even on the first meeting I'd thought of Derek as being such a big guy, so much older- but seeing him in wolf form, it was clear that he wasn't finished growing any more than I was. The thought was strangely satisfying.

Derek got to his feet, a little shaky from the violence of his fast change- but he got over it quickly, and after a minute he was prowling around me, poking at all sorts of interesting scents I must be carrying with his snout. When his nose got a little too close to a few personal places, I gently placed one hand on his furry chest and pushed him away. "All right, enough of 'Smell Chloe.' Get out of here. Chase bunnies, or something."

Derek made one last circle just to prove that I couldn't tell him what to do, his long tail briefly beating against my ribcage, and then he caught the scent of something interesting and bounded off into the underbrush. I snorted and settled down with my back against my tree, which practically had a groove worn into it from all the times I'd sat here, and pulled out my DP notebook. Might as well see if I could get a little more plotted out, so I'd have something to send back to Simon tomorrow.

"Hey, are those the new pages?"

I kept myself from shrieking only from exhaustive experience in stark, sudden terror, and twisted around to glare at the blonde girl standing next to me. "Way to give me a heart attack, Liz. I don't do much good as a necro if I'm _dead._"

Liz at least had the grace to look a little embarrassed. "Sorry. Sometimes I still manage to forget that I don't make noise. I think it's the forest. Everything tells me that I'm crunching when I walk, so I guess I just sort of fill it in."

"Oh yeah, because you've had extensive experience with forests." I sighed and set my notebook back down; Liz knelt next to me to peer at it. "You could wait for Simon to actually post it online, you know."

"Not much in the way of internet in the afterlife," she said absently, peering at the page. "Turn it over for me?"

I complied, secretly pleased that she was so addicted to our work. "You know this story. You were there for it."

"Not for this part."

"Yeah, but I _told_ you-"

"Chloe, will you just shut up and let me read?"

"Behold the irony of _you_ telling _me_ to shut up," I grumbled, but I obeyed, turning the page a few more times so that she could finish. When she was done she looked up at me with a huge grin and shifted into a more comfortable cross-legged position, floating a few feet above the ground.

"Great as always, Chlo."

A little shy, I reached out and closed the notebook. "Thanks." Then something occurred to me. "How have you been reading it up till now, if you can't get it online on the other side?"

Liz grinned at me and shoved one strand of hair carelessly behind her ear. "Eve's addicted. Jaime prints them off for her and leaves them on the kitchen counter. I just read them when I drop by with Eve."

A warm little glow filled my chest. Jaime was really reading my comic? (Okay, mine and Simon's, it was his idea in the first place, anyway.) _Eve_ was reading it? I'd thought that Jaime was just being polite when she said she loved it, but Eve Levine didn't believe in politeness, and she'd certainly never get Jaime to go out of her way printing it out if she didn't really enjoy it.

"She's going to be so pissed that I saw these ahead of her," Liz gloated. "_Her_ necro can't produce the pages previous to posting date."

"Well, yeah, but Jaime has better things to do than write a dumb comic, like actually earn a living with her ability," I pointed out, not that I thought Liz would listen to me. She had this weird possessive thing about me as "her" necromancer, and truth be told, I kinda didn't mind. In life she'd been sweet and silly and kind of goofy, and in death she was… not much different. But Eve had been teaching her a few things about being a badass, and she'd been training hard with her telekinesis. Between the two of us, we made a pretty good team, and I loved having her around. Tori was a terrible substitute for an actual friend, and Simon did his best but sometimes you just needed another girl. Even if she was dead. "You can tell Eve that if she wants, I can leave out some of the advance copies, before Simon starts posting."

Liz looked sorely tempted to turn down this offer, but in the end her loyalty to her mentor was stronger than her need to gloat. "I'll tell her, but I bet you're going to going to regret that when she starts showing up and harassing you about getting them done faster."

"I just plot stuff out. Simon's the one who does the art and puts it all together."

"Yeah, but _Simon_ can't hear her."

I shared a smile with Liz. "Do you ever think about how weird our lives are?" I asked her. "I mean, here we are as the Death Twins, and you being taught by some kind of super-ghost and me by Jaime freaking Vegas, and I'm living with a bunch of werewolves and one of my best friends is a sorcerer and it's just so-" I made a kind of helpless, flailing movement. "Weird. You know?"

Liz looked thoughtful for a moment. "Yeah, I mean, the afterlife is kind of a wakeup call for weirdness, so I know what you mean. But-" She looked back at me, intense. "It's good. I mean. Isn't it?"

I didn't even have to think about that one. "Yeah. It is."

**~*~**

Liz was still hanging around when Derek came trotting back, a hare dangling from his mouth. He dropped it at my feet and then honest-to-God wagged his tail at me when I arched my eyebrows at him.

"You cannot be asking me what I think you are."

His tail wagged harder, and he nudged the body a little closer to me with his nose. Derek was so ridiculously playful in his wolf form that I just wanted to hug him close and bury my nose in his ruff like I used to do with that German Sheppard Dad had when I was really little, but I would probably be a little happier if his idea of play didn't involve me quite like this.

"You already killed it, Derek. I am not reanimating it just so you can chase it again."

"You _do_ that?" Liz asked, with horror. I glared at her.

"No, but Derek's stubborn."

Wolf-Derek's gaze went unerringly to the spot where Liz was still hovering, and he cocked his head, unimpressed. He was the only one who'd never needed a period of adjustment when it came to me talking to ghosts that no one else could see, and he was so good at guessing where ghosts were standing that I used to wonder if he could sense them- but no, he was just really good at approximating based on where I was looking. A fine eye for detail, that was our Derek. Though some could, and often did, use the less charitable "obsessive" instead.

"Seriously, Derek, take it away," I told him. "I'm not raising anything tonight. I just want to hang out with Liz and maybe work a little on the DP. If you want to keep chasing, find another damn rabbit."

He looked at me with narrowed eyes, and I just stared back at him impassively. After a moment, he heaved a pathetic sigh and picked the rabbit back up, keeping his tail pointedly down from its usual jaunty wag as he sulked his way back into the undergrowth.

Liz was laughing when I looked back over at her. "He's so cute like this," she said, chortling a little. "Too bad he can't stay in wolf form all the time."

I thought of big, surly Derek, bickering at the dinner table with Clay about his anatomy class and lecturing Kate about eating her vegetables. "I dunno. I think I'd kind of miss him."

"Well, yeah, but that's because you're a freak of nature."

I rolled my eyes at her. _Hello, out-of-control teenage necromancer?_ "Trust me, I'm painfully aware of the fact."

She rolled her eyes. "Not like _that,_ stupid. I'd be all alone if it weren't for that. No, I meant with Derek, and maybe even Simon, a little."

I sat up with surprise. "How do you mean?"

"You didn't see them, before you came. Even now I don't think you really get what they were like. It was just the two of them, backing each other up, looking out for each other first and foremost, always and forever, amen. You get my drift. And then you showed up and it just… changed."

"Yeah, but none of that really had anything to do with me. It was just the chain of circumstances."

But Liz shook her head. "No, it was more than that. Simon's always been more social than Derek- not that _that's_ difficult- but you were the first one he really bonded with, over magic and movie quotes and that comic book of yours. And you're _still_ the only one that Derek is nice to."

"He's not like he used to be," I protested.

"You don't see him at college, like I do. He really hasn't changed much from the way he was at Lyle House. It's really only around you that he's any different."

I went silent, digesting this. I know Liz checked up on everyone else for me when I was stuck in Buffalo and unable to do it myself. "You never told me that."

"I didn't think you'd listen." Liz reached out and tapped one ghostly finger on the cover of the DP notebook. "But if you don't believe me, it's all in here. Just read back. You'll see what I mean."

**~*~**

Liz eventually left me to my thoughts, and I took her advice and went back to reread. I tended to do that anyway, when I was about to sit down and write, because it helped center me as to who the characters were and how the plot was progressing. I didn't do it all that often with Darkest Powers, though, because I knew those characters like the back of my hand (like the inside of my own heart), and I'd _lived_ that plot.

Not all of it, though. The first part- the part that Simon had mostly dictated to me- was about Derek and Simon's lives before I'd ever met them.

I remembered the reaction of the online readers, when we'd finally gotten to the part of the story when I showed up. It had kind of hurt, hearing some of the things they'd said, because of course they'd all known so much more about Simon and Derek than I had back then, and to them I was just the bitchy blonde who was getting Derek in trouble when he was only trying to get my to acknowledge the powers that were right under my nose. I'd avoided going near the website for a while after that, until I was firmly a part of the story and Simon told me that the fan reaction had calmed down a little.

It was strange, going back to re-read it now, because I could see all the things that Liz said. Something about the distance of seeing it on the page helped clarify my memory a little. I _had_ changed things for both of them, and not just because I was so obviously another supernatural. Simon and I had ended up as really good friends, and Derek…

What had I been, to Derek? For that matter, what was I, now? He was one of my best friends, the person I'd trust over anyone else after all we'd been together, and according to Liz he acted better around me than around normal people. But that didn't really explain anything. He loved Simon, and he respected Clay, and he didn't seem to feel much of a need to change his behavior for either of _them._ What was so different about me? Unless…

I snapped the notebook shut and stared silently into the dark, silent scope of the woods, waiting for something I was too afraid to name.

**~*~**

The Change back into human was easier for Derek then the Change into wolf. It was almost as if he twisted it all up in his head in advance, so that he got too worried about Changing and made it harder. I couldn't blame him – after all, didn't I worry just as much when I watched him Change?- but either way, by the time he'd spent a whole night running around the woods in wolf form, he was more than ready to just get it over with so he could go home and sleep in a real bed.

I kept my gaze steadily on the tree as I heard him grab his clothes and get dressed again. He'd shown up at my door in just pj bottoms and a t-shirt, already prepared to rip off his clothes in a hurry if necessary. (This was my life now. I had friends who had to do _emergency stripping._ And sometimes I woke up with dead rats struggling to get closer to my bed. How did it come to this?)

"I'm decent," he said after a minute, and I blushed harder at the sudden intrusion of his deep voice after so many hours of silence. I turned around and smiled at him.

"Hey, I even got a little writing done, after Liz took off."

"Not much, I bet," he snorted, but his heart wasn't in it. He was worn down from his evening, and it showed in the exhausted droop of his normally arrogant shoulders. "Ready to go back in?"

I scrambled to my feet and brushed myself off, my notebook tucked under one arm. "More than."

He took the lead, as usual, on the way back out. "You can stay in and get some real sleep one of these days, you know," he said over his shoulder, while I was concentrating on his heels to avoid stepping on them in the darkness. Not _all_ of us had night-vision, thank you. "I really can Change without you."

"Yeah, right, just try to get rid of me," I huffed, and he laughed a little and fell silent till we got into the house.

Derek veered right for the kitchen, and I followed him, feeling in some dire need of sustenance after my long night. It was hard, switching from a totally normal daytime schedule at my dad's to the semi-nocturnal one here at Stonehaven, and counting back, I realized I'd actually only been here for about twenty-four hours. No wonder my internal clock was so out of whack.

We lounged in the kitchen, me with my pudding cup and chocolate milk and him with his size-huge glass of OJ. It was silent between us, but a comfortable sort of silence. Left to our own devices, neither one of us was all that inclined toward being talkative. Usually it took someone else, like Simon- or Liz- to get us talking.

But not always. I could think of tons of times he and I had talked, about nothing in particular, goofing around and just enjoying each other's company, and that was just off the top of my head. I allowed myself to think a little more about what Liz had said. Was it really possible that Derek was that different around me? And if so, what did it mean?

It couldn't possibly be what I thought it was. Not after all this time.

"You seeing anyone?"

Derek slowly lowered his glass and gave me an incredulous look, and I blushed, hardly able to believe that the words had come out of my mouth, either. "What?"

It went against every piece of myself to back down from Derek, always had. "I _asked_ if you were seeing anyone. What, your superhearing on the blink?"

"No, I heard you, it's just-" He shook his head. "Why are you asking?"

Well if I'd known it was going to turn out this awkward, I would have done a better job of controlling my mouth. "Just curious."

"First time you've ever been curious about my love life."

Well, the first time I'd been curious about it _out loud,_ anyway. "Something Liz said got me thinking about the four of us. Or, supernatural teens in general, I guess." Little white lies to save yourself from raging embarrassment didn't really count against you, right? "How hard it is to connect with a normal when you've got this whole other life you can't talk about. I mean, all the supes we know are hooked up with other supes, right?"

"Right…" Derek said cautiously. "And how does this relate back to me, exactly?"

I should have just ended the conversation right there. Seriously, it would have been simpler. Hell, I shouldn't have started it in the first place. "I _know_ what it's like in high school; I'm living it. You're the only one of us who's made it out to college."

"And, what, you're wondering if it gets better?"

Not exactly. "Yeah."

He set his glass down on the counter, still half-full of orange juice, and folded his arms uncomfortably across his chest. "I'm not really the best person to ask. I'm only going part-time-"

"Half of my high school is only going part-time," I joked.

"-and I'm not the greatest at socializing," he said, ignoring my interruption. "Trust me, your college experience isn't going to be anything like mine."

There was something in his voice, something tense and strained. I'd heard him upset, plenty of times, but Derek was just one of those people who had two default modes: grumpy and _angry,_ without much variation in between. When Derek got worried, he got angry. When he was sad, he got irritated. When he was hungry, he was vexed. When he was scared… well, you get the picture.

I hadn't heard Derek sound like this in a long, long time. Not since his first few changes, not since finding safety here at Stonehaven, not since I'd gone home to my dad after everything was over. I didn't like hearing it now, either.

"What does that mean?"

He ducked his chin combatively. "Nothing."

"It _sounded_ like something." I can be stubborn, too. It's the best defense mechanism against Derek. Simon is patient, and Tori whines, but I just dig my heels in and refuse to budge until I get what I want. It always worked better than I actually might have expected, on everything from answers to breakfast to trading secrets.

"Look, we all know I'm not good with people. I'm not like you, Chloe. I can't make a joke and give someone a smile and get on with it all. I don't know how to… _date._" He spit out the word like it was some foul-tasting poison. "And you've done fine on your own with human guys, so I don't know why you're prying into my personal life unless you're just trying to make me uncomfortable for some reason-"

It was the most I'd _ever_ heard him say at one time, but my astonishment at that fact was going to have to wait, because something he'd actually said registered with me. "Wait, what do you _mean,_ I've 'done fine with human guys?'" I used sarcastic little air quotes. "I don't really date, you know that."

"Yeah, but you-" He stopped, probably seeing the murder on my face. "Fuck. I didn't mean to say that."

"Too late." I knew what he meant, now. _Damn_ his sense of smell. I'd showered right before heading to the airport, but I'd been in a hurry, and apparently it hadn't been enough. "_Now_ who's prying into someone's personal life? Jesus."

"I can't _help_ but notice," he muttered.

"Oh, no, you don't. I used like half a gallon of body wash. No way you smelled that without _looking_ for it, Derek. Christ, was _that_ why you hugged me at the airport yesterday? And here I was thinking you were just happy to see me." It had been such a great moment for me, the guy who pretty much never even smiled lighting up to see _me,_ wrapping _me_ up in a hug. At the time I thought maybe he'd missed me as much as I'd missed him. But no, he was just checking to see if I'd had _sex_ before leaving, of all the things. What, was he worried that I wasn't focused enough on him? Hadn't flying out to visit every single chance I got been enough? "And anyway it's not like Tom's a _real_ boyfriend, he's just a guy I know who-"

"I don't need to know this," he groaned. "Don't tell me his _name,_ Christ, it's none of my business."

"No, right, of course not." I bit my lip. "You're perfectly happy to pass judgment on my sex life but when I try to explain, it's suddenly none of your business." I took a step away, turning away so he couldn't see me when I realized that my eyes were starting to fill with tears. That was just the icing on the cake.

"Oh god, don't cry," he groaned, taking a shuffling step closer and putting one hand on my shoulder. His touch burned even through my heavy wool sweater, and I yanked away. "Chloe. Seriously, I wasn't prying, I wasn't looking for it, I was just giving you a hug and I think you missed a spot in the shower and I wasn't passing judgment, I was just commenting and _Christ,_ why are we even talking about this? I don't care! It's none of my business!"

I sniffed. "Stop shouting. You'll wake everybody up."

"I'm not fucking shou-" He stopped, and lowered his voice. "You drive me crazy, you know that? You started this whole damn thing. What were you even asking about? Why do you even care?"

I grabbed my binder and decided that it was time to get out of here, _now_, before I said something even stupider and made more of a mess than I already had. "Whatever. Forget it."

He gave a wordless, inhuman growl of frustration and grabbed my arm, wheeling me around before I could get more than a couple steps. My notebook slapped to the ground from my suddenly nerveless fingers as I stared up into his dark eyes, wild with frustration and something I couldn't quite recognize.

"Don't you dare walk away from me. Just tell me. Why the hell were you asking about my love life? It wasn't some dumb thing about college, that's for damn sure. So _why_?" He punctuated his question with a slight shake of my shoulders. "Tell me why."

He hadn't laid hands on me in anger since he'd almost broken my arm at Lyle house. I'd forgotten how intense he could be…

But now wasn't like back then, when he was an intimidating stranger in a terrifying situation. Derek was one of my closest friends, in some ways _the_ closest. I'd trust him with my life. I'd trust him with my secrets. And I even trusted him with my sanity. He was the gatekeeper to some of the darkest parts of my power, and for all the times I'd silently sat watch while he Changed, he'd stood guard when I was too terrified of raising the dead to otherwise let myself fall asleep.

This was _Derek_ shaking me and demanding answers, and if nothing else he deserved the truth. "I was trying to find out for myself, okay? I was trying to feel you out, see if you might be interested in…" I couldn't say it. I just couldn't get it out. "Anyway. Point well taken. You can let me go now."

He didn't let me go. I don't know why I was even surprised. "You were trying to see if I was interested in…" he repeated, something startled and thoughtful scudding across his face. "In you. That's what you were going to say, wasn't it? If I might be interested in you."

I closed my eyes, my humiliation finally complete. "Yes. Yeah, okay? That's what I was going to say. And again, point well taken, so please _for the love of God_ let go of me so I can go be pathetic in private."

"Chloe," he said, and to my astonishment, he was _laughing._ "Oh, Chloe."

I opened my eyes just so I could glare at him. "It's not funny!"

"It kind of is," he said, and when I tried to get an arm free so I could punch him, werewolf resiliency be damned, he grabbed both my hands between his much larger palms. I froze and stared down at them, caught by the warmth radiating from his bare skin, the calluses and tiny scars against my fingers. "I swear I'm not laughing at you. It's just… God, you don't know what pathetic _is._"

I peered up at him, perplexed now more than mad. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means," he said, still grinning that loopy grin that I'd never seen before, "that you haven't seen pathetic until you can't see anyone else because you can't get your mind off someone. Until you're throwing yourself against a pack of killer werewolves because they're trying to hurt her. Until you're _smelling her hair_ to see if there's anyone else."

I caught my breath. "You mean you-"

"Yes," he said, and sobered, staring at me. "Yes, God, yes. How did you not notice this before now? _Clay_ noticed. I'm not really known for subtlety."

I could still remember the way he'd put his body between me and the werewolves on that playground, years ago now. And again, when we'd met Clay and Elena and Jeremy, before we knew that the Pack weren't a danger to us, the same instinctive shielding. Of me. That far back.

"You're right, you kind of aren't," I said, and then I kissed him.

He kissed me right back, no hesitation, and let go of my hands in order to grab me by the hips and yank me closer. _This is probably a bad sign for the rest of our relationship,_ I thought muzzily, but, what the hell. I'd gotten used to getting manhandled by Derek a long time ago, and I could save my breath arguing for the things I didn't actually like. So I just grinned into the kiss and grabbed him back, one hand around his waist to splay across the heavy muscles of his back, the other creeping up to coil my fingers into the long hair at the nape of his neck.

I have no idea how long we stood there in the Stonehaven kitchen, kissing like we had all the time in the world, but I know that when I eventually surfaced for air I felt like my head was about to spin right off, and Derek didn't look much better.

He leaned back in, rested his forehead against mine. "Pinch me," he muttered, and I huffed out a laugh.

"Nope, 'fraid you're not dreaming this time."

"That's what they always say," he muttered, but his fingers were toying absently with the hem of my sweater, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkle up the way they did when he was smiling and trying to hide it. God, he was handsome. Who could have guessed that the sullen, acne-marked boy who'd made my life so complicated in Lyle House could grow into _this?_

He shifted just long enough so that he could get a look at his watch and then groaned. "Christ, it's near dawn. We really need to go to bed."

I couldn't help it, I really just couldn't. I gave him an arch look and murmured, "Don't you think that's moving a little fast?"

His eyes went wide, apologies and denials backing up fast behind his tongue, but then they narrowed again as he caught up to me. "Funny girl," he said, and then let go of me completely, giving me a (very light) shove towards the kitchen door. "Seriously, our sleep schedules are whacked enough as it is. And we can figure this thing out tomorrow." He looked suddenly anxious, or as anxious as Derek ever did. "Right?"

"Right," I agreed, as definitively as I could. I had no idea what we were going to settle tomorrow, and in fact I was willing to bet that our "talk" would end up with just the two of us making out all afternoon, but I was pretty comfortable with that idea. With a first kiss that great, I couldn't wait to see what he could do with a little more time.

I held out my hand. "C'mon, you can walk me up and kiss me goodnight."

He grabbed my hand, and the feel of his fingers laced through mine gave me a silly little thrill. I tugged him out of the kitchen, and we crept up the back stairs, snickering a lot at our attempts to be sneaky and probably making a lot more noise than just walking normally would, but it wasn't as if Clay and Elena and Jeremy weren't used to late-night expeditions.

We got to my door first, and when Derek looked down at me, my breath caught in the back of my throat at the look on his face. Intense. Hadn't I been thinking that, earlier, how intense he always was? I hadn't ever really thought about it in this context, except for those few million fantasies.

He kissed me first this time, without any other words or warning, but that was Derek all over. It was pretty chaste compared to our wild scene in the kitchen earlier, but my heart still beat faster, and I let out a little sigh when he finally lifted his head.

His hand came up, and the very tips of his fingers brushed my cheek, like I was something special. "Goodnight," he whispered, and then he let go of me completely, backing away down the hall. I didn't watch him go into his room. I didn't need the temptation.

It was the work of seconds to change back into my pj's and crawl into bed, and maybe I should have lain awake thinking about everything that had happened tonight, but honestly?

I was out like a light.

**~*~**

Jaime was there when I came down to breakfast the next morning (well, almost afternoon), sitting next to Jeremy and digging into second breakfast with gusto. Well, for her it was probably first breakfast, but I knew Jeremy was up with the sun, and that his bowl of cold cereal had probably worn off a couple hours ago, so this was definitely a second for him. Werewolf appetites could seriously just scare the hell out of me sometimes, I have to tell you.

Jaime lit up when she saw me, and I have to admit that I rushed right over to give her a hug. "I didn't think you were going to get in till later!"

"The airlines managed to sneak me in on an earlier flight," she told me, then stepped back and let me sit down to eat. Actually, I was pretty damn hungry myself. My late-night pudding cup was hours before, and I hadn't even gotten a chance to finish it, what with the arguing and the kissing and everything.

I hoped my smile wasn't too dopey, but from the shark-like grin Jeremy was giving me, I pretty much wasn't fooling anybody.

"Well, it's really good to see you," I told her, controlling my blush from sheer force of will. "I wanted to tell you, I've actually been getting better at controlling it when I sleep, I haven't had any incidents in over a month."

Jaime raised her hand, laughing. "Please, no shop talk at the table," she said. "If Jeremy won't let Clay do it, it doesn't seem fair to allow it from you." She winked at me. "We'll talk after we finish this excellent meal."

"Which I didn't make," Jeremy said, when my dubious expression must have conveyed itself a little too clearly. "Clay took care of it on the condition that I clean up afterwards."

Now, Clay's cooking I could trust. I dug into the pancakes and bacon with gusto, and didn't really resurface until someone thumped into the chair across the seat from me. Derek gave me a slight smile when I looked up at him, and I grinned back, a little shyly. It was so weird to see him in the bright light of day, after everything that had happened last night. Weird, but good.

Jeremy cleared his throat. "So, your Change went okay last night, Derek?"

Derek looked away from me and nodded toward the head of the table. "Yes, sir. A couple of days earlier than expected, but it felt fine."

I wondered how Jeremy knew, but then I remembered- the food. My pudding cup and milk, Derek's glass of orange juice, and- oh, no, I must have just left it there on the floor.

I looked pleadingly at Jeremy. "You found my DP binder this morning, right?"

Jeremy grinned. "Yes, Chloe, I did. It's in the den. I'm guessing you were a little distracted last night."

I glanced down at my plate and I'm pretty sure I was blushing like there was no tomorrow. "You could say that."

Elena breezed in before Jeremy could answer, Clay at her heels. "There!" she said, dramatically flopping down into a chair. "Kate and Logan are off to class, and I have an entire day free. Free, I tell you!" She raised her hands heavenward in thanks, and Clay rolled his eyes while helping himself to a pancake.

"At least until I have to go pick them up at the end of the day, darling. I still don't understand why you can't just-"

"Because it's your turn, Clay," Elena said, and held up a hand when he would have continued what was probably a long-running argument. "Nope. This is a beautiful day and you are not going to ruin it for me." She looked at me and grinned. "What do you think, Chloe? You seeing a good day in your future?"

I looked across the table at Derek, and I couldn't help it. I smiled the biggest, goofiest smile of all time, not really caring how obvious I must be to the entire table.

"Yeah," I said, as Derek's eyes glowed with a private pleasure. I couldn't wait to get him alone. "I think it's going to be a great day."


End file.
